U.S.News ranks Purdue's graduate programs among nation's best

March 13, 2012

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University's
programs remain among the best in the nation in U.S.News & World
Report's rankings of the top graduate schools released Tuesday (March
13).

"These rankings reaffirm that a Purdue degree
represents a world-class educational experience," said university
President France A. Córdova.

Mark J.T. Smith, dean of the Graduate School,
added, "The rankings illustrate the successes of our faculty and
graduate students while highlighting the recognition their work earns
from our peers. Purdue provides an excellent educational foundation,
which includes opportunities to work with top faculty and
interdisciplinary programs that allow students to address issues of
global importance."

The colleges and schools in which programs were
ranked include engineering, education, business, health and human
sciences, and pharmacy.

Programs ranked this year include:

Engineering: Purdue's College of Engineering tied with Cornell University at No. 10. Last year, the college's graduate program was ranked 11th.

Five of the schools in engineering are in the top
10 in the country in specialty rankings, including a No. 1 ranking for
agricultural and biological engineering. Aeronautics and astronautics
ranked sixth; civil engineering ranked sixth, tied with Massachusetts
Institute of Technology; mechanical engineering ranked ninth, tied with
Cornell University; and electrical engineering ranked 10th, tied with
Princeton University.

Other engineering rankings include computer
engineering, 11th; nuclear engineering, 11th, tied with Oregon State
University; chemical engineering, 14th, tied with Carnegie Mellon and
Northwestern universities; materials engineering, 14th, tied with
Carnegie Mellon; industrial engineering, 15th; environmental and
ecological engineering, 19th, tied with Penn State University and the
University of Minnesota; and biomedical engineering, 23rd, tied with the
universities of Minnesota, Virginia and Wisconsin-Madison.

Education:
Purdue's College of Education ranked 37th, up from 43rd last year. The
program has climbed steadily from a ranking of 68th in 2008.

Business:
Krannert School of Management ranked 42nd, up from 49th last year.
Krannert's weekend MBA program was ranked 19th. Among specialty
rankings, Krannert's production/operations program was ranked seventh;
supply chain/logistics was ranked 10th; and information systems was
13th, tied with Arizona State University and the University of Michigan.

Not all disciplines are ranked each year. The
following health disciplines, last updated in 2008, were ranked this
year and include:

* Audiology: The accredited doctoral of audiology
program was ranked 12th, tied with Ohio State University, University of
Arizona, University of Memphis and University of South Florida. This
specialty area was previously ranked ninth in 2008.

* Speech: The accredited master's degree in
speech-language pathology was ranked fifth, and tied with Northwestern
University and University of Arizona. It ranked second in 2008.

Pharmacy:
The College of Pharmacy's doctor of pharmacy program ranks seventh,
which is up from ninth in 2008. It tied with Ohio State University and
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

In the latest undergraduate rankings by U.S.News
& World Report, released in August 2011, Purdue was ranked 23rd
among the nation's public universities. Purdue also was again
acknowledged for its achievements in four of eight student success
categories. The categories, in which schools are listed but not ranked,
are First-Year Experience, Internships, Learning Communities and Writing
in the Disciplines.

U.S.News & World Report's complete rankings
in America's Best Graduate Schools will be available on newsstands April
3. U.S.News has published graduate school rankings annually since 1987.

Extended program rankings and additional information will be available Tuesday (March 13) at http://www.usnews.com